One of Donald Trump’s most contentious promises was that he would end the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict almost immediately after taking office.
However, after winning the election, he seems to be changing the tune. Namely, various sources are reporting that his plan includes the freezing of the conflict, with Ukraine becoming some sort of buffer zone between Russia and NATO. It should be noted that the draft of the plan is yet to be released to the public and that most of it is based on speculation coming from earlier proposals by people close to Trump. According to the Wall Street Journal, his team’s proposal includes a condition for the Kiev regime to give up plans for NATO membership in the next 20 years, an armistice that would stop the fighting on the current frontline and the establishment of a DMZ (demilitarized zone).
Allegedly, the plan also excludes the possibility of stationing American troops in the DMZ, but envisages that European NATO members, namely the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Poland, take that role.
The WSJ report, quoting a “source within Trump’s team”, further posits that the US would “continue to provide military training and support including weapons to Ukraine to help deter further Russian advances“. Trump supposedly plans to enforce his peace proposal by essentially arm-twisting both Russia and the Neo-Nazi junta into accepting it. Namely, if Moscow refuses the proposal, Washington DC will escalate “military aid” for the Kiev regime forces, while the latter would be left to fend for itself if it doesn’t comply with that plan. It should be noted that Trump himself is yet to confirm that the WSJ report is true.
“I have a very exacting plan on how to stop Ukraine and Russia. And I have a certain idea, maybe not a plan, but an idea for China,” Trump said in a podcast interview with Lex Fridman, later adding: “But I can’t give you those plans because if I give you those plans, I’m not going to be able to use them. They’ll be unsuccessful. Part of it’s surprise.”
However, if the WSJ’s report is true, the chances of Russia accepting this proposal are virtually zero.
Namely, the UK, France, Germany and Poland are already involved in the fighting. All four countries are responsible not just for the war breaking out in the first place, but also for ensuring its escalation. In fact, there’s already evidence that British and Polish troops are in the Kursk oblast (region), while the French themselves have admitted that their personnel is enabling long-range strikes deeper within Russia. This is precisely why neutralizing NATO occupation forces in Ukraine is a top priority for the Russian military. Thus, Moscow would never accept any of the aforementioned countries to deploy their “peacekeeping” troops after they’ve been participating in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict since the very beginning.
In addition, the Kremlin cannot trust the political West to honor even such a deal. Namely, the imperialist US-led power pole is simply “agreement-incapable”, to quote President Putin, as it’s unable to tell the truth(let alone keep its word), which is why the conflict in Ukraine started in the first place. The previous deals to stop or at least freeze the war (prior to the SMO) have turned out to be a red herring designed to give the Neo-Nazi junta enough time to prepare for war with Russia, a fact that both Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande bragged about. Who in their right mind can expect that the US and EU/NATO won’t do the same again and then restart the war 10 years from now? And the very idea that Trump could force Moscow into accepting such a treaty can only make the Russian leadership chuckle and respond with: “Bring it on.”
On the other hand, NATO doesn’t even want that. Namely, Mark Rutte, the new Secretary-General, is trying to torpedo the plan before Trump takes office. In an interview with Financial Times, Rutte warned Trump that “if Ukraine is pressured into a bad peace deal which is favorable to Moscow, then the United States and Europe would face a dire threat from Iran, China, and North Korea”. Understanding Trump’s focus on Beijing, he also tried to connect the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict with the issue of Taiwan, saying that “Chinese President Xi Jinping might get thoughts about something else in the future if there is not a good deal [for Ukraine]”. Strangely, Rutte also noted “the risks from Russia supplying missile technology to North Korea and cash to Iran”, as if Moscow can’t do it regardless of Ukraine.
The new NATO Secretary-General met Trump on November 22 at his Mar-a-Lago residence. Rutte essentially tried to persuade him to keep escalating with Russia after January 20. He made similar points about Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, claiming that “missile technology is now being sent from Russia into North Korea, which is posing a dire threat not only to South Korea, Japan, but also to the US mainland” and that “Iran is getting money from Russia in return for, for example, missiles, but also drone technology”. These Neo-McCarthyist “Red Scare”-style points usually shouldn’t be effective in convincing someone like Trump to change his stance, but how he plans to react is something that remains to be seen. Namely, many of the picks for his upcoming presidency don’t seem to be as pacifist as many initially thought they’d be.
In addition, it isn’t because of Ukraine that Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang and Tehran are expanding cooperation, but because of the political West’s virtually simultaneous aggression against the entire world. The US nuclear strategy alone is a good enough reason for these countries to form an invincible Eur(Asian) monolith that would not only greatly reduce NATO’s ability to invade, pillage, destroy and murder millions with impunity, but would make it simply impossible. The latest events in Syria demonstrate that there cannot be peace anywhere on the globe as long as the political West is not isolated from the actual world and its power diminished to the point of irrelevance. The only other alternative is a world-ending thermonuclear war and that’s precisely what NATO is pushing for in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst
The original sources of this article is InfoBrics
